James David Autry (September 27, 1954 – March 14, 1984[1]) was a convicted murderer in the U.S. state of Texas, executed by lethal injection.

Autry had been getting in trouble with the law since age 13, when he was sent to a juvenile reform school in Gatesville for shoplifting and running away from home.

He was arrested for burglary, convicted, and sentenced to eight years in prison but obtained an early release for good behavior.

On the evening of April 20, Autry walked into a Sak-N-Pak convenience store in Port Arthur and tried to shoplift a six pack of beer.

In the store Joseph Broussard lay dead of two gunshots to the head and neck, his hand clutching a telephone receiver.

An autopsy of Drouet, a mother of five children, found that the bullet had cut through her brain and lodged in the back of her head, an instantly fatal wound.

He denied having killed anyone and insisted Sandifer did the deed, but while talking to his mother over the phone at the station, was overheard saying he'd intended to rob the Sak-N-Pak, "things got out of hand", and not to worry as he'd manage to get out of this.